“Good for you!”Donning a purplish-pink colored sweatsuit, Stecklein says the bingo games are more about the fun than just winning.”It’s not cut-throat here,” she says, with a smile. “It’s over by the piano, so I’m not going to track it down.”A few more letter-number combinations are called.And they have a winner.”Do you have a bingo?” Mellie Stecklein, who’ll be 71 Monday, excitedly asks her neighbor to the right.

“There goes somebody’s lucky one,” Carver says. Then, a new game begins.One of the little yellow balls falls to the ground and bounces on the linoleum tiles. That afternoon, one lucky winner would be enjoying pot roast and vegetables, apple pear salad with almonds and dark chocolate mousse.A meal fit for a bingo queen.As lunch nears, a new winner calls out the magic word.Carver checks her credibility, with a roll call of the letters and numbers needed for a true bingo. They can win Traveler tickets for free shuttle rides to and from bingo and lunch, as well as meal tickets at one of the programs’ eight meal sites. “It was her idea.”The bingo winners win more than a nickel here and a nickel there. She gives all the kudos to her mom – who’s also the caller.”She’s actually the reason we have bingo,” Stephenson says. One of my goals is to get more activities in here.”Stephenson doesn’t take the credit for bringing bingo to senior programs. “We play bingo and pinochle, and we’re starting a book club. “N42, four-two,” Carver says, enunciating so the eight players can hear.”They really look forward to this,” senior programs director Gwen Stephenson says.

Each player studies her bingo card like a cat watching an occupied bird feeder.The caller, Phyllis Carver, quiets a few women talking nearby.”Why does time go fast?” comments one of the players, as High Country RSVP volunteers begin setting tables for lunch next to them.Carver turns the handle of the wire bingo cage, spinning the yellow balls before calling out letters and numbers. Another winner at bingo on a Friday morning at Colorado Mountain College’s Lucy Huntley Senior Center.The senior women wear short, salon-set hairdos and sweaters colored pink, purple or blue. Nine ladies sit around a rectangular table, the sound of pennies scraping on its surface as they clear their bingo cards.

Nickel bingo card game